Savvy Pets, 5/1/20: Hello Polly, the Black Lab! …

Please welcome with open arms and hearts, Polly, the beautiful black lab!

Polly came to us from Santa (by way of our elf on a shelf) 5 years ago. She is truly our 4th child and she goes everywhere my kids (T1 Macey 10, Emma 9 and Cadien 7) go!

She’s not a diabetic alert dog but she’s certainly good therapy for our whole family. My husband, Torrey, was not in favor of getting a dog and the first year, he referred to her as “my” dog….”Your dog peed in the house again,” or “your dog needs water”…..but it didn’t take long for him to come around and he’s pretty much her number one fan now. 😊

She sleeps with the kids, swims with them, watches TV with them….she’s basically one of them! We can’t imagine life without her (though I could do without the hair!) LOL!

Why your pet is acting like a weirdo during quarantine was published by Michael Waters for Vox.com, 24.April 2020. The psychology behind your dog or cat’s new eating habits, constant whining, or extra-loud purring is explained by animal behaviorists.

Across the globe, as the quarantine period advised by public health experts to fight the spread of the coronavirus stretches from weeks into nearly two months for some, pet owners are reporting that their furry companions are leaving old habits in the dust. Some pets are growing clingy. Others are pouncing on exercise equipment, gliding across countertops, or hiding in corners and shooting their owners concerned stares.

This isn’t the first time that pets have weathered a pandemic lockdown. During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, pet owners put face masks on their cats and dogs, a physical representation that pets were struggling with the outbreak just as much as people were. “She has made the best of it in good spirit, as we all have,” one pet owner who masked a 5-year-old bulldog told the Seattle Star in 1918.

A century later, we aren’t exactly masking our German shepherds or Scottish folds, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t affected. “Just like people, pets can respond with a wide variability to any change,” says M. Leanne Lilly, a professor of veterinary behavioral medicine at Ohio State University.